Tech

10 Ways You're Using Gmail Wrong

When it comes to our inboxes, we all havebad little habits we just can't break. Whether it's deleting messages to achieve a zen inbox zero or having a ton of Gchat conversations open at the same time, there are things we just shouldn't do.

1. Keeping a million drafts

Hitting that "Compose" button is the easiest way to create a bunch of drafts you'll never remember. We misuse drafts for all sorts of things: creating reminders for ourselves, making to-do lists or writing up an email we never actually send.

Since Gmail automatically saves drafts, you've got hundreds of empty and useless draft messages before you know it, just begging to be deleted.

2. Deleting emails to get to inbox zero

This is real and it's a problem. People are so obsessed with having zero unread emails that they delete messages with reckless abandon. There are even apps wholly dedicated to gamifying the process (such as The Email Game).

3. Marking everything as 'read'

This often goes hand-in-hand with trying to get to inbox zero. If you mark a message as read, it decreases the number in your inbox. But the real problem arises when you mark things read that you haven't actually read, thinking to yourself, "I'll remember to check this out later."

But you totally forget.

4. Having too many unread emails

On the flip-side of obsessive email checking is neurotic email ignoring. Letting emails pile up is a digital mess, but it's sometimes just so much easier than tackling those 145 unread work emails that popped into your inbox over the weekend.

5. Sending yourself emails

With the advent of cloud services, you shouldn't have to send yourself emails of documents, links and attachments you want to save. Yet sometimes it just seems easier to send an email, because then it will be in your inbox forever.

Here's a tip: Utilize your Drive to save all those items in one place.

6. Overloading on labels, sublabels and folders

We tell ourselves it's all in the name of organization. If we create labels, sublabels and folders, our inbox will be shiny and beautiful, and we'll always know where everything is. But then we forget why we created all of those folders, or we only use them intermittently, and it makes everything more confusing than when it started.

7. Mixing up 'Reply' and 'Reply All'

Sometimes you hit that "Reply" button in a group message without realizing you should have pressed "Reply All." Or, you're constantly hitting "Reply All" when you meant to only reply to one person. How many times can you recall sending that "Oops! Didn't mean to send this to everyone!" message?

9. Old email subjects, new conversations

Much like real-life conversation, email threads have a way of going off topic. That email thread you and your friends started about some interesting news story can easily devolve into a conversation about cats.

10. 'Thank you!' 'No, thank you!'

Sometimes it's hard to know when to end an email conversation. You want to be polite and say, "Thanks!" but then the other person responds with a "Thanks!" of her own. When does it end? Who gets the last word? It's the courteous email thread that will never die.

The Many Faces of Gmail: A 10-Year Retrospective

2004: Launch

According to Google lore, a user "kvetched about spending all her time filing messages or trying to find them," and asked Google to solve her email woes. This led an engineer to start working on the service as a "20% time" project, company-slang for employees' passion projects. Gmail would famously stay in beta until 2009, five years after launch.

Image: Screenshot, Google

2006: Chat and Calendar

2006 was a year of rapid expansion for Gmail. Google launched chat in February, Gmail for domains three days later and Google Calendar in April.

Image: Screenshot, Google

2010: Priority Inbox

The August 2010 launch of Priority Inbox separated incoming mail into three folders: "Important and unread," "Starred" and "Everything else." The service intended to help users bogged down by subscription emails

Image: Screenshot, Google

2011: Visual Upheaval

The massive design update in 2011 was Google's first real attempt at reducing visual clutter. Profile pictures were added to conversations, HD themes were added and the option to display your inbox as "comfortable," "cozy" or "compact" helped users with different screen sizes.

Image: Screenshot, Google

2013: Categories

The latest visual update separates incoming emails into separate tabs, further reducing inbox clutter and sparing users the stress caused by an endless stream of email notifications from social networks.

Image: Screenshot, Google

Gmail for Android (2008 vs. Now)

Gmail got its first Android app in 2008. It was made available for T-Mobile's G1 phone. Today, the app has been downloaded on Google Play close to a billion times.

Image: Screenshot, Google

Gmail for iOS (2011 vs. Now)

The long-awaited Gmail app for iOS devices arrived in November, 2011. The app has been regularly updated ever since, now allowing users to switch between up to five separate accounts.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.